Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia (SMS)

Klappentext:The three mighty gods of the Germanic pantheon, Freyr, Thórr, and Óðinn, are very different from one another. Freyr appears as the divine counterpart of the sacred human king, Thórr is the friend of men and the champion of human values. Óðinn, as a mysterious wanderer and magician, arrives unexpectedly to help, to counsel, or to destroy. The book traces the qualities of the gods to the variant strands of which Germanic myth is woven: to the humanistic values of the Ancient Middle East where the figure of the monster-fighter originated, to the faith of the subarctic pre-Germanic population, to the social institution of kingship, and to the warrior ideals of the nomadic steppe nations. This new study by Lotte Motz is a major step towards questioning Dumezil's Three-Function-Theory and is likely to spark off new discussions on the nature and origin of the heathen Germanic religion.